Church and community groups across the USA are preparing to assist those who may be displaced by Hurricane Gustav, as it heads towards the city that was torn apart under the strain of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

To mark the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the National Council of Churches USA's Special Commission for the Just Rebuilding of the Gulf Coast is sponsoring an Ecumenical Work Week in late August.

Anabaptist churches, heirs to what is often called 'the radical Reformation', are working in support and solidarity with communities still recovering from hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the southern United States.

Richard Dawkins is right to attack facile God-talk, says Simon Barrow. Misidentifying the divine as a 'thing' attached to or manipulative of the world is disastrously to misunderstand who and what God might be.

While much US media attention is focused on Tropical Storm Ernesto (currently pounding the Caribbean) which could hit Florida and Cuba with force later this week, churches and development agencies are assessing the impact of a year of destruction, chaos and despair on the Gulf Coast.